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How do you balance this with the fact that kids have short attention spans, or that some kids just aren't great at making themselves put in the hard work necess

How do you balance this with the fact that kids have short attention spans, or that some kids just aren't great at making themselves put in the hard work necessary to become great at something without prodding from their parents?

bmj 17y ago
There's a fine line. As I mentioned above, our six year old is taking piano lessons. Sometimes he isn't motivated to practice, and there is a fine line between instilling a willingness to work hard and backing off a bit to give him the opportunity to decide for himself what he wants to do. I'm not sure that kids are immediately equipped to understand the importance of hard work for something they are passionate about. It's certainly possible to instill this in them without being a taskmaster.
dkimball 17y ago
From what I've seen, at least, it seems that children don't have short attention spans intrinsically; they just have short attention spans for what they find uninteresting. All aristocrat-peasant societies socialize their population to flatter the aristocracy, including by pretending to be interested in their interests; democratic-market societies like the United States are aristocrat-peasant societies in which everyone is treated as an aristocrat. (See www.historyexplained.com for the theoretical model of aristocrat-peasant and tribal societies; but bear in mind that its model of history is wrong. Read _1491: New Revalations of the Americas Before Columbus_; had the northern American Indians only been immune to smallpox, we'd think of democratic-market societies as a shoddy alternative to the one true way of self-controlled tribalism -- which the Middle Ages, too, had been fitfully evolving into.) So, the problem is not that children have short attention spans; it's that they haven't learned to fake interest in the manner expected in Western societies. (From your name, I'm guessing that you're American or Canadian.) When a Western child, or a member of most types of tribal societies, is bored, he or she doesn't try to hide it; by contrast, when genuinely interested in something, such a person exhibits a passionate interest uninhibited by concepts of aristocratic reserve. In short: figure out what a child is interested in -- or rather, let the child figure that out for him- or herself -- and all the rest should come together on its own. Just hope it's not an interest that leads to graduate school in the humanities...
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  You seem to have started with the premise that "tribal" societies are superior in some way. I disagree. Additionally, kids have parents because they're extraordinarily unskilled at balancing the long-term perspective against the here and now (granted, many adults aren't much better). I find it hard to believe that just letting your kids do whatever they want is really the path to greatness for most kids. I think parents should help kids explore their passions but it seems there's a balance to be found where you also don't let your kids give up as soon as it gets difficult. My parents did that too often, and my wife's parents pushed her through the rough spots. I won't go into the whole results, but it's clear to me which is superior.
  - dkimball 17y ago
    What aspect of the 'tribal' spirit, as I noted above and as discussed on historyexplained.com, do you object to? I'm sufficiently fond of freedom, and sufficiently disgusted by cringing, fawning, and gossip magazines, that I find such a social structure admirable, although, on the other hand, I'm also fond of not dying over a point of honor, so there's that too. (And note, part of my premise above is that "tribal" doesn't have to mean "primitive.") Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push children when they run into difficulties. I agree that there is a certain amount of basic knowledge, which everyone should acquire whether they want to or not (I've even found benefit from statistics classes). But we're talking about passions -- that is, recreations, not basic knowledge. I agree that encouraging someone to get through difficult spots -- to reassure them if they fear failure, to provide superior knowledge and skills on an as-needed basis -- is a good thing, but the whole point of a passion is that it's something that the person in question _wants_ to do.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      >Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push children when they run into difficulties. So the child can learn that the limits of their ability are beyond the limits of their self-perceived ability. We're talking about passionately applying oneself to an activity. This does not limit the locus to recreation IMO.

bmj 17y ago

There's a fine line. As I mentioned above, our six year old is taking piano lessons. Sometimes he isn't motivated to practice, and there is a fine line between instilling a willingness to work hard and backing off a bit to give him the opportunity to decide for himself what he wants to do. I'm not sure that kids are immediately equipped to understand the importance of hard work for something they are passionate about. It's certainly possible to instill this in them without being a taskmaster.

dkimball 17y ago

From what I've seen, at least, it seems that children don't have short attention spans intrinsically; they just have short attention spans for what they find uninteresting. All aristocrat-peasant societies socialize their population to flatter the aristocracy, including by pretending to be interested in their interests; democratic-market societies like the United States are aristocrat-peasant societies in which everyone is treated as an aristocrat. (See www.historyexplained.com for the theoretical model of aristocrat-peasant and tribal societies; but bear in mind that its model of history is wrong. Read _1491: New Revalations of the Americas Before Columbus_; had the northern American Indians only been immune to smallpox, we'd think of democratic-market societies as a shoddy alternative to the one true way of self-controlled tribalism -- which the Middle Ages, too, had been fitfully evolving into.) So, the problem is not that children have short attention spans; it's that they haven't learned to fake interest in the manner expected in Western societies. (From your name, I'm guessing that you're American or Canadian.) When a Western child, or a member of most types of tribal societies, is bored, he or she doesn't try to hide it; by contrast, when genuinely interested in something, such a person exhibits a passionate interest uninhibited by concepts of aristocratic reserve. In short: figure out what a child is interested in -- or rather, let the child figure that out for him- or herself -- and all the rest should come together on its own. Just hope it's not an interest that leads to graduate school in the humanities...

ryanwaggoner 17y ago
You seem to have started with the premise that "tribal" societies are superior in some way. I disagree. Additionally, kids have parents because they're extraordinarily unskilled at balancing the long-term perspective against the here and now (granted, many adults aren't much better). I find it hard to believe that just letting your kids do whatever they want is really the path to greatness for most kids. I think parents should help kids explore their passions but it seems there's a balance to be found where you also don't let your kids give up as soon as it gets difficult. My parents did that too often, and my wife's parents pushed her through the rough spots. I won't go into the whole results, but it's clear to me which is superior.
- dkimball 17y ago
  What aspect of the 'tribal' spirit, as I noted above and as discussed on historyexplained.com, do you object to? I'm sufficiently fond of freedom, and sufficiently disgusted by cringing, fawning, and gossip magazines, that I find such a social structure admirable, although, on the other hand, I'm also fond of not dying over a point of honor, so there's that too. (And note, part of my premise above is that "tribal" doesn't have to mean "primitive.") Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push children when they run into difficulties. I agree that there is a certain amount of basic knowledge, which everyone should acquire whether they want to or not (I've even found benefit from statistics classes). But we're talking about passions -- that is, recreations, not basic knowledge. I agree that encouraging someone to get through difficult spots -- to reassure them if they fear failure, to provide superior knowledge and skills on an as-needed basis -- is a good thing, but the whole point of a passion is that it's something that the person in question _wants_ to do.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    >Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push children when they run into difficulties. So the child can learn that the limits of their ability are beyond the limits of their self-perceived ability. We're talking about passionately applying oneself to an activity. This does not limit the locus to recreation IMO.